I currently have two things on the needles, both of which have made some progress since I last showed you them.

The vanilla socks:

I’m two stripes away from the heel on the second sock. I keep these in my purse at all times so they get worked on fairly regularly.

And the design I’m working on, tentatively called Roundabout:

I took this picture this afternoon and had since picked up stitches around the bottom to work a ruffle. Mostly to stop it from rolling up, which bugs me. So yeah.

I’ve also recently done some dyeing:

The skeins came from different sweaters but have similar compositions, wool/nylon blends, perfect for socks (that I’ll have to handwash). There’s a little bit of difference in the weight but I kind of want to do striped knee socks or some sort of two-color shawl.

I dyed the green in my crock pot and the purpley/rust colored one in a pot on the stovetop. I used a combination of Jacquard Acid Dyes and Kool Aid.

I did another two skeins too but I had to dip them a second time and they’re currently drying. I’ll have pictures of that later.

On a personal note, my younger brother is graduating from high school tomorrow. Allegedly. So, y’know, whoo or whatever. : )

So I bought a vest at a yard sale, attempted to wear it, and it looked horrid on me. So I raveled it. It’s some kind of wool, I think merino. It was handknit so I suspect it’s a commercially available yarn. Maybe Malabrigo. It’s suuuuuper soft and the colors are so pretty.

I don’t remember the exact blend of this, but it’s lambswool/angora/nylon. The original color was light blue and I threw it in a dyepot to soak up some extra dye a while ago. Pretty.

Light blue silk yarn + black RIT dye = shiny shiny silver yarn that I am completely besotted with. Seriously. It’s so pretty. I have a lot more blue silk from the Nordstrom cardigan it came from, and I’ll probably overdye the rest. The silver is so pretty. It looks tiny but I think it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 50g.

I’m also knitting things. Sharks (of course) and a scarf for me and a sweater for WWFY. Hopefully it will be before a week from now that I actually talk about those things.

I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last entry. Clearly I failed terribly at NaBloPoMo but in my defense, my boyfriend was in town and now I’m up with him, doing relatively little knitting and certainly not taking any pictures.

I could show you this yarn I dyed last week for a WWFY swap:

It’s Sanguine Gryffon Bugga Skinny and I used black RIT dye. As an aside, I’ve never seen yarn suck up dye so fast. I usually dye wool and it takes a good 30 minutes. With this, I dunked it in the bucket for 30 seconds and it was already darker than I would have liked.

I could show you the haircut I got last week, which is super short and pixie-like:

Or I could show you a picture of a kitty:

None of which happened in the last five days or so. But I am knitting some things (spats and sharks for Etsy) and I’ve been finishing things (my garter belt, which works with thick knit socks but I need to find a better holding mechanism for lighter ones).

Hopefully I’ll be back for more posts this week (I’m going hiking at some point and I should definitely take pictures of that).

I didn’t go in to my volunteer gig today so I could get some work done for my occasional paid employment (shit I sell on Etsy). I’ve almost finished up a pair of shark mittens and I dyed up some wool for additional mittens and spats.

I just used black RIT dye in a bucket in the sink. I did four skeins then took them out to dry:

It’s damp outside so they’re on the kitchen table until my parents yell, in which case I’ll just hang them up in the shower or something.

All the yarn I dyed was recycled from thrift store sweaters, mainly from the Goodwill Outlet. I actually (or, well, my mother) found the RIT dye at the thrift too. I also used some leftover Dylon dye I’ve had for a bit. I probably paid less than $5 for the yarn, so it was a lot cheaper than buying WotA for mittens.

Because it’s so cheap to whip up, I’m considering offering kits for the mittens and spats. I’m not sure if people will be put-off because it’s recycled yarn and because it doesn’t have a “brand name”, but it’s just an idea. I’m not sure how much people charge for kits anyway. And I’d have to print up patterns. But I’d definitely appreciate another revenue stream.

Anyway, next time on Stitch, Brinn Stitch: Finished shark mittens. Maybe some spats (I forgot to photograph the last two pairs I made). Possibly Karlsro progress (it isn’t much, but I’ve been sneaking in stitches here and there).

I’m back to full-time job hunting, which basically means full-time knitting and watching Charmed (which is the latest sci fi/fantasy show I’ve gotten into. I love it; it’s like Buffy except sometimes the characters are happy and there are more witches). This means there is more time for knit blogging.

I recently finished up the last pair of shark mittens on order. They look like this:

I also started another knitting project for me (even though I have two others on the needles at the moment). As I mentioned the other day, it’s Karlsro in some recycled wool. I went down a couple of needle sizes, and this is my sleeve so far:

Don’t mistake it for a swatch. You know I don’t do that.

I also managed to do some dyeing the other day. I recently recycled some undyed wool from a thrift store vest, and I dunked it in some dye:

Colorway: Sharks. For knitting more shark mittens, obviously.

Colorway: Gradiation Experimentation. I rolled yp two 50g skeins into loose balls and dunked them in a bucket of purple kool aid for a bit. Voila, two gradient-dyed skeins. Not sure what to knit with them yet. Maybe a striped something or other. Thoughts?

In the past couple of days, I’ve finally gotten around to dyeing up some yarn I’ve been meaning to dye for a bit. I used my crock pot and easter egg dyes and Kool-aid.

The first yarn I dyed was a cream worsted weight wool I got from a recycled thrift store sweater. It was huge and cabled and the finished yarn came out of the crock pot looking BEAUTIFUL:

I used a packet of purple Kool-Aid and blue and red (and I think maybe a purple) tablets of Easter egg dye with a good splash of vinegar. I was going for a dark purple, but I love how it came out. I am already knitting this up into a Lanesplitter skirt with some wool I dyed last summer:

I like how the colors work together, though I didn’t at first. Worsted weight yarn on size 10 needles works up super fast, so I am already past the increase section and about halfway through the straight section even though I just started yesterday.

The other yarn I dyed was originally a yellow lace-weight cashmere. I don’t especially care for yellow, so I threw it into the crock pot with some blue and green Easter egg dye:

It’s lighter than I wanted but still pretty. The purple spots are where I accidentally threw in some Tropical Punch Kool-Aid. The packet is blue but the powder is red and I wasn’t reading especially closely, so… Still, I like how it came out, better than if had just been green. I was shooting for teal but this is more like grass and wild strawberries. I think it’ll look cool when it’s knit up.

I recently finished a couple of stealth FO’s for a swap, so I’ll have those for you in the next couple of days as well as Lanesplitter progress. I’m still working on my shorts but striped diagonal multi colored hand-dye is a lot more interesting knitting than solid colored cotton stockinette, so I’ve set it aside for a bit. I don’t expect it will sit too long before I finish it though–I’m about halfway up past the legs, so I have about two inches in the front and two inches + short rows in the back, then ribbing. It’s not a particularly time-intensive pattern, but I was feeling the itch of startitus so I cast on Lanesplitter.

I also started a large-scale sewing project, but more on that later. : )

So I recently participated in a swap on Craftster wherein I swapped kits to make a craft with other people. It was sort of round-robin style. The kit I made (a drop spindling kit) went to sugaree. I included a how to spindle pamphlet, a little sample of my early handspun, a drop spindle, some fiber, and a drawstring bag to hold it all:

The bag:

and the fiber:

I included about 30g of alpaca fiber and about 125g of domestic wool top (from the pound I ordered when I started spinning) that I dyed. I call the colorway “Ocean Madness (It’s No Excuse for Ocean Rudeness)”.

The kit I received in return was from ChrisSews and it was for making jewelry. She sent so much cool stuff!

Here’s everything:

Tons of findings:

Tons of beads:

as well as instructions and materials to make these earrings, based off some on my wists:

I can’t wait to make the second earring so I can wear them, but I don’t think I’ll really be able to until I go back to school. There’s a lot of little parts and I don’t want to lose anything, so I’ll wait until I’m settled in my apartment at school and have a work space that belongs to me.

So my sister has a thing for tie dye. And I have a thing for dyeing yarn. So when my sister decided she wanted to dye some white sheets to take with her to college this year, I decided to dye up some yarn as well. I dyed four hanks of wool reclaimed from a thrift store sweater into three different colorways:

Peace and Love and Braaaainss. Because it reminds me of hippies and zombies.

Sunset

Raspberry Stains

Not sure what I’ll do with them yet. Sunset might become a hat or something. Peace, Love, and Braaaaains will probably be a contrast strand in something colorwork. *shrug* Mostly I just like looking at the colors in my stash and knowing I put them there. : )

So I don’t remember if I ever told you guys this, but I’m totally obsessed with the tv show Battlestar Galactica. The boyfriend and I watched all four seasons over a couple of months over the past year, and I got HOOKED. It’s a very gripping show.

Anyway, I joined a swap on Craftster that was Battlestar themed! I had such fun making the items for my partner AggiegirlKatelyn:

First, I dyed up some wool I harvested from a thrift store sweater:

Now it’s my Eye of Jupiter yarn! I dyed up two skeins: one for her and one for me to keep. : ) Not sure how it will knit up, but I do like the dye job. The blue part is a little purple cause my blue dye was a little light and I wanted to darken it up (which happened to debatable success). I like it thought. : )

Next, I embroidered a panel and turned it into a tote bag:

Guys, I totally love this thing. I have a ton of tote bags, but I desperately wanted to keep this one for myself. I didn’t though, and sent it off to my partner, who specifically requested something with “Frak off” on it. This is probably the closest to quilting I’ll ever get (I had to center the panel in four bars of the grey fabric) cause I totally lack the patience and precision, but I LOVE how this bag came out. It looks great and totally professional. Even my line of top stitching around the top is even and wonderful.

I also made her this kickin’ card:

I cut out all the yellow pieces then glued them on, did the detail work in black pen and applied a layer of mod podge. YES. It’s bitchin’. I know.

So I recently did some dyeing. With Kool Aid. Cause I had some yarn from some sweaters I frogged but I didn’t like the colors. First this, which was originally pastel pink (yuck):

This is a wool-acrylic blend (50/50 I think) from a cardigan I frogged. I’m still not thrilled with the color, but I figure with the high acrylic content, this is as good as it gets. And anyway, the dye took much better than I thought it would. I used… several packets of grape, I think.

I have a sweater quantity here (as it came from a sweater), but I think I’ll use about half of it in a striped pullover with some grey woool. It’ll tone down the pink, and I have a random craving to knit/have a striped pullover.

Next, there was this ugly yellow color that came from a zipper hoodie:

Again, a sweater quantity. Probably a light sport weight. This is 100% merino wool, so it took dye much better:

I wasted a bunch of blue Kool Aid before I figured out it wasn’t going to take up more dye without heat and then I got the hang of it. I dyed the base red and did some grape variation. Not sure what this will become (probably a sweater). I’ll let it marinate in the stash. I’m not complaining–the sweater was probably under two dollars (the thrift store where I bought is 1.59/pound for clothes) and the Kool-aid was probably about two bucks. making the total cost of a sweater quantity of yarn in a color I like about four dollars. Win.